Misanthropic Monday - Run Run Run Run Everybody Move Run

I’m not a runner. I hate it more than catching spiders or folding laundry. On the hierarchy of annoyances, it lies somewhere between getting a paper cut and getting pulled over.

But I have friends who run because they claim it’s therapeutic, meditative, keeps them young. They are liars, complicit in the scam of instant health like acai berries or magnet bracelets. Running does not have the same psychological effects on me. I don’t pause to spy a squirrel or marvel the colors of a moving sun. When I pound the trails, my body begs, “Why” and my brain conjures more enjoyable activities like taking a bone-saw to my chest. Unlike others, I don’t run because it makes my mind or body feel good, I run because it makes my bum look good. Hell, running makes my bum look awesome!

For those who Nature also pillaged and plundered your backside, can I get an Amen???On the other hand, those of you who are blessed with natural gluteaus curveous will not understand my grief. Surf another blog because I hate you. Being Buddhist precludes me from drop-kicking you, but I can (and on a daily basis, do) imagine the deflation of your unfair advantages and I smile because as evolved as I am, I’m still petty.

But those of you who God decided to pillage and plunder your backsides understand me. I went thru school with kids scribbling my name in the library dictionaries under “Flat,” laughing and joking about whether I was coming or going. Ha ha ha!!! I laughed along because sticks and stones and all that, but it broke me.

It wouldn’t be until my early thirties when the loss of my brother emptied my heart, causing an error in judgment so fat that I committed myself to running a marathon to raise money for cancer research. So uncharacteristic was this decision that both kith & kin dismissed my whim as a hiccup from a mind disordered by grief. Although there were whispers of hiring of a software engineer who moonlit as a voodoo priest. He was booked so there would be no exorcism with KFC bones. No joke.

To the surprise of no one, the first few weeks of my training were filled with expletives and an attitude so sour, you’d swear I swallowed a Meyer Lemon. Despite the pain, I knew salvation lied at the end of the marathon when I intended to stop running forever. And like BP’s attempt to clean up their petrol hemorrhage of 2010, that day never came.

Instead, as I hobbled to receive well-wishes and congratulations, I heard the words that stopped my heart, “Your bum looks fantastic!” It was my cousin and after she repeated herself at my insistence, her eyes went wild and she pried my claws off her arms to escape me. I kidnapped my sister for a second opinion, corroboration of a random observation, confirmation that Bigfoot truly did exist.

In a huge restroom mirror, I rotated millimeters until I had spun a full 360 degrees, inspecting modest mounds and a saucy roundness I never had. Like a terrorist, I kept Amanda hostage and had her convincingly repeat what I wanted to hear, Yes, you have a booty, a booty, a booty…..

Five years have since passed and on Sundays, I still set my Ipod to something angry from Eminem and get my run on. I still ache and curse running proselytizers (Clears your mind! Relieves your stress! Raises people from the dead!). But I now understand the design and as long as it inflates and shapes what I was once bereft of, I’ll keep drinking the Gatorade. Modestly of course, because sometimes you don't want to dream too big.